An Elite End
by alleycat1312
Summary: How do the best die? Read and find out. One-shot.


I'm back with another one-shot. Read on.

An Elite End

They always said a one-woman army was no good—that it would have to end one day and no amount of armor or upgrades could deter fate. I didn't believe it to be so. I couldn't and wouldn't, and so I was determined to defy death. I was to be the victor; I would prove them all wrong.

"_Are you ready to die, Hunter?" he asked me._

_I didn't reply._

_He pulled his gun and started to dive behind a cruiser. It was too late._

_No one could beat me to the draw._

_The blasts from my Powerbeam echoed throughout the concrete docking bay as I pumped him full of energy. I saw his figure crumple and fall behind the ship. He had been one of the few bounties that had ever given me trouble, but now he was over there eating the floor, no more than another mark, another tally in the "successful" column._

_"I'm not dying anytime soon," I muttered and crouched down to his level. I reached out and fingered the Rubium powered Beam gun his dead hand held._

_Yes, that would look nice in my collection._

_My Powersuit had no holster for my prize, so I safied the trigger and stuffed it into the holster of my bounty's pathetic armor. With my one free hand, I dragged my kill back to my ship, his weak bio-suit scrapping and clacking on the pavement the entire way._

These mines are a maze. A damn maze. And I'll be damned if I ever solve the puzzle, literally. What lies at the end of these gray tunnels, what lurks behind this energy door is the essence of my nightmares.

Him. It. Them.

Ridley. Phazon. Pirates and Metroids.

But I am already damned. There is nothing left for the powers that be to claim. My soul is dry, cold, and clear as one of those icicles hanging from the cliffs in Phendrana.

_It roared again, another challenge. Did it know it was dying? _

_The Sheegoth took another step towards me; I saw my visor in its many faceted eyes. Then it shuddered, spit up violet energy I took to be blood, and collapsed. In that moment, I realized that death was ugly. As life abandoned you, but not before it left, death grasped your being and choked the life out of you, just like the Sheegoth's blood._

_It took a moment for the red wrath to leave me. I was so caught up in the Sheegoth's last moments that I had forgotten to breathe. I gasped, and the crisp winterland air shocked my lungs. _

_I liked the pain. I liked the look of the lifeless monster before me. I was the victor, the conqueror. _

_The Quarantine Cave was empty and quiet. Snowflakes drifted down from a white sky as the lonely music of some long lost voice echoed in the open space. The fury of the battle had been replaced by silence-- meltable, unadulterated silence._

_I loathed it. I wanted to take my bare hands and break it, whatever it was--the snowflakes, the light, the long lost voice-- rip it in two and throw it to the ground. I wanted my pounding heart and the mechanical sounds of my suit to fill my ears, not this detestable quiet which was encroaching on my conquest. Yet, however strong my malice was, I couldn't utter a sound. The silence could have easily been broken with a cry, but I knew this something would outlast my most vulgar outbursts and make them forgotten. It would win, and I couldn't bear that loss._

_I looked at the still form of the Sheegoth. It was repulsive, now that it's powerful and bestial nature had been extinguished; I had no enemy to fight here, only the nonexistent but threatening music. _

_I stalked off into the snow in search of a new thing to hate and overpower._

I round the corner and find two turrets. They spit bullets at me, some rattling off the concrete floor. I begin to charge my Powerbeam and roll away from their shots. As soon as I am right side up again, I fire the charge and follow it with a missile. The first turret explodes and I pump two missiles into the next. Only two electricity laced stubs remain jutting from the rock. So much for that inconvenience.

I go through the door they were guarding and find myself in a low-ceilinged tunnel. Unlike the previous ones, which were mainly dirty maintenance shafts, this one has studded metal walls and a swept floor. I am getting closer to the important places-- labs, control rooms, treasure rooms, the actual Phazon mines.

I abhor Phazon. I dislike It more than Him and Them put together. Where my hatred towards the others is passionate and hot, my feelings towards Phazon are, are...different. I can feel an emotion I haven't felt before.

I pause on the threshold of the next chamber and consider my internal world.

Have I felt this before? What is it called? Then, out of the depth of my memory, a clip long repressed plays.

_Rolled up like a ball, I cried. I rocked back and forth, my back hitting the wall each time. Thump thump thump. There I was, Samus Aran, crying on the floor of my empty apartment. I was raised by the enlightened and then cast out from their sanctuary, sent to struggle on a cancer of a planet, an exile from the only family I ever knew._

_How could they just throw me out like that? I was their "Hatchling", their pride and joy. Now, I was just another nobody on this forsaken spit of soil. I felt weak and helpless. I was afraid of what my future would be, if I would ever see the Chozo again, whether I would ever be more than a nobody. I felt fear._

_I became angry at myself. Why was I afraid? I gritted my teeth and threw my weight back against the wall. I did it again and again, beating the weakness out of me, determined to dominate myself and stop my tears. _

_Finally, my fear submitted to my anger, and in that moment I formed an iron will. Wiping the salty tears from my face, I resolved to make my own name, build my own future. The Chozo had thrown me out. From now on I would never care about those overphilosphical birds. I resolved to never be a nobody. I would not fear._

Fear. Is that truly what I feel?

No. I am the Hunter. I fear nothing.

I blast the door, and it grants me access into the Elite Control.

The door opens into a slight walk-in. The left side and ceiling are made rock and extend forward while the right side opens up into the actual room. Right away I can feel a charge in the room's atmosphere, a near-by energy. There are probably pirates in this room. Good.

I switch to the Scan Visor, slowly move forward, and turn to my right. The first thing I see is the data system set up there. I scan it and find several entries. One is a pirate log, but I opt not to read that now. There is a notice that holds my attention. It says that the Hunter, me, has been spotted and all personnel are ordered to terminate her, me, on site. _Well, that's very interesting_, I sneer.

Then I look up and see it.

It is power encased in glass and alloy, Phazon and flash mended into one. The "Elite Pirate" my visor reads. Blue electricity runs down arms of rippling muscles and over its dead, opaque eyes. Can it see me? Does it hear my breath quicken at its sight? It and Them have become one.

I hear a rasp to my right and turn in time to shoot a Shadow Pirate. My Powerbeams illuminate it as it shudders in temporary paralysis. Then they attack, bodies cloaked, scythes drawn, shrieks falling dead in the concrete and alloy room. The promise of battle entralls me as I switch to the Thermal Visor and begin to mow them down.

Suddenly the ground shudders, not a tremor or vibration but a release of power. Glass shatters and something is screaming in a voice of primordial rage. A shockwave hits me and the pirates, and we are thrown to the ground. Recovering almost instantly the pirates retreat and launch themselves up onto the ceiling where they watch and roar in their fury at not destroying me. I jump over a second shockwave and twist in mid-air to face my new enemy.

The Elite Pirate.

It roars like thunder and rips itself from its stasis tank, launching pieces of pirate alloy into the wall above me. I lunge and roll away as the debris falls to the place I stood moments ago.

It charges and I dodge. It is slow but powerful, one claw could kill me. The cannon on its back absorbs the powerbeams I shot at it so I brace my cannon arm with my left and fire missile after missile at his head. In response it creates a shield from the energy it absorbed and my missiles are useless.

A pirate drops from the ceiling and swipes at me with its scythe. I jump back out of its reach and then watch as the Elite Pirate breaks its back with a blow meant for me. Capitalizing on that miscue, I fire missiles at the Elite and make contact with its shoulders.

The beast doesn't notice, and I can feel anger. How dare it go unmarked by my power.

I am jumping, spinning, shooting, and evading attacks in a dance of death with this monster. The red wrath has taken me over, and the blood rolling down the Elite's face brings me the greatest satisfaction. It is tiring; I am too fast for it.

And I am laughing, a vicious sound, as I fire at its unprotected back. It turns and I jump towards its unguarded face, ready to end it.

Then it catches me. I miscalculated, made a wrong move, and now I am paying the price. Any other enemy I could escape, but the Elite Pirate's crushing grip is inevitable. I am trapped.

I struggle for freedom as it draws me close to its glazed eyes. Blue Phazon blood trickles from its head and down its neck as my suit's sensors go wild. Those eyes are evil, that blood is poison. I am going to die.

The Shadow Pirates start a frenzy. The Hunter is about to meet her end. They jump and shout and fire their weapons in jubilation, but all I can see is the Elite.

It holds me on eye level and for that moment we connect in a horrific fashion. It is a killer—designed to deliver death—and I am no different from it. I am no different from It. From Them. From Him. I will die as a murderer but only a smile and statistic for High Command.

The Elite Pirate squeezes, and I can hear my suit strain despite my screams. I shoot at full speed into its face, but the eyes continue to stare, to probe, to read me. The pressure increases. My suit cracks. I feel my ribs collapsing, puncturing my vital organs. I groan in agony and cough up crimson that splatters onto my visor. The world of Elite Control grows hazy as I bleed out of my suit and onto the tiled floor. That cold cement, my final resting place.

The Elite Pirate crushes me, and the picture of its satanic face inverts itself. How ugly. The last thing I feel in life is a blessed weightlessness. I am falling to the ground, to my grave.

I have no fear, only disbelief at my defeat. So this is how I go? How sad.

Through blurred vision and blood I see it glare down at me as it raises its massive foot to crush my head. I try to open my mouth to curse my killer, but there isn't enough time. My hatred fails as the Elite Pirate strikes.

I am dead. The Hunter has met her end.


End file.
